The Industrial revolution

The Industrial revolution

The Industrial revolution was a time of drastic change and transformation from hand tools, and hand made items to machine manufactured and mass produced goods. This change generally helped life, but also hindered it as well. Pollution, such as co2 levels in the atmosphere rose, working conditions declined, and the number of women and children working increased. The government, the arts, literature, music and architecture and man's way of looking at life all changed during the period. Two revolutions took place, both resulting in productive but also dire consequences.

Before the first industrial revolution, England's economy was based on its cottage industry.  Workers would buy raw materials from merchants, take it back to their cottages, hence the name, and produce the goods at their home. It was usually was owned and managed by one or more people, who were generally close to the workers. There was a good worker/boss relationship, which was demolished and destroyed by capitalism. This industry was efficient but the workers, productivity was low, making costs higher. The longer it took one person to manufacture a product, the higher the price. Subsequently, goods were high in price and exclusive only to the wealthy people.

The year was 1733, the demand for cotton cloth was high, but production was low. This crisis had to be solved or England's economy would be hindered. The answer came from a British weaver, John Kay, who invented and fashioned the flying shuttle, which cut weaving time in half. John Kay was a pioneer and his invention paved the way for numerous inventors. Although at first, many workers didn't accept machines, in fact, many inventions were destroyed, but what was inevitable, couldn't be stopped. The machines had made their way to England, and nothing could stop them.

By the 1750's, the industrial Revolution had begun. At first, inventions were strictly limited to cotton weaving. Inventions such as the spinning jenny and the water-powered frame, both of which provided spinning yarn faster, the spinning mule, the power loom and the cotton gin, all helped the manufacture of cotton goods by speeding up the process. Mass production had begun, along with capitalism. Capitalist, people who have their own materials, money and space, bought many machines and stored them in a factory, where hired people worked the whole day manufacturing goods. The factory system had replaced the cottage industry. Mass production made usually expensive items, such as shoes, less expensive and easily affordable by lower class and less wealthy people. The quality of life had improved. In the 1800's, inventions weren't just limited to the cotton industry. Steam engines were invented, providing a faster mode of transportation, instead of the use of horses and carriages. With steam engines, cities were able to move farther away from rivers and sources of water, to start cities.

The second Industrial revolution proved more drastic, not only in inventions, but in social and government policies and reforms. Art and culture flourished and was transformed into many different and unique styles. The first industrial revolution had forever changed England, and later the world. England was now ready for another change, as life with machinery had already been assimilated into society.

The second industrial revolution utilized the power of electricity to help them develop their technology and help social and home life. Michael Faraday, a British scientist, demonstrated how an electric current could be made. This concept and principle is still in use today. Electricity improved life by supplying people with light, and electricity to power machines. Communications improved as a result of electricity. The telephone and telegraph were the first communicational devices that were for public use. With the development of technology, radio waves were discovered. Now messages could be sent over long distances in virtually no time.

Advances in Science were also made. The discovery of radioactivity by Marie Curie helped discover radioactivity as power source, but also led to the discovery of the nuclear bomb. During the 1800's over 70,000 chemical compounds were broken down. Some of these were Portland cement, vulcanised rubber, synthetic dyes, and petroleum products. Petroleum begun to be widely used as an alternate energy source. Gasoline was also needed for transportation also changed from steam engines to the internal combustion engine. The internal combustion engine made transportation faster and less public. A person could own a car instead of using public transportation. During this time, a new technology was born in the field of transportation. Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully completed the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk. The air plane industry was born.

Medicine before the 1750's and in the 1750's wasn't well developed. Once infection set in, nothing was possible to save the patient. Various diseases couldn't be stopped or controlled because of limited technology. In the 1850's however, vaccinations were discovered and administered. X rays were also discovered and provided doctors with a faster way of diagnosing medical problems. Louis Pasteur discovered and fabricated a way to eliminate all germs in milk. Called pasteurisation, this technique is now widely used on all milk. The technique involves heating the milk to slow the fermentation process.

Darwin was a naturalist who devised the theory of evolution. It stated that all animals and plants evolution from a lower species. He also developed the concept of Social Darwinism that the strongest survive. Many people contested his ideas and argued against them.

Life was drastically changed during the industrial revolution. People were living in germ infested, crowded and very unhealthy conditions, much like their place of work. Children and women laboured in harsh conditions, working long hours with little pay. The British Parliament stepped in and limited and controlled child labour. This sparked a rebellion. People, especially wealthy capitalists, wanted the government to stay out of its issues, called the laissez-faire system. Many people opposed the laissez-faire system, saying the capitalists would gain too much power and people would be mistreated. The laissez-faire system was disregarded after a few years.

Art changed with the different ideas of social Darwinism, the laissez-faire system and the industrial revolution. Romanticism painted emotions that they had no control over, such as love, religion, and beauty. It showed more of how people look at one moment in time. Realism tried to capture what was really happening, all the sadness and tried to make people work to change what was happening.

Socialists were reformers who wanted to construct a better life for all people. Among them, Robert Owen, an owner of a textile mill, whose reforms reshaped the working class. He raised pay, improved working conditions, and didn't allow children under 11 to work. Directly related to Owens reforms, crime and disease rates dropped and life improved. Marx, also a socialist, stated the class struggle, the conflict between the different classes of people, had an impact on the changes that occur in history.

The Industrial revolution brought on more technology, wealth and power, but at what consequence? The people were living in filth, working unthinkable hours and being paid very little. The revolution shaped modern society to what it is today. As Rousseau said, "Civilization spoils people," but did people spoil civilization by implementing machines to do our work?

1600's

By the 17th century the limitations of wind and waterpower caused by calm and dry weather spells were seriously affecting the development of mining for valuable metals and to some extent coal. Mines were becoming too deep for animal and human powered pumps to cope with subterranean water. When wind and water power failed, the mines flooded.

1606 Della Porta in 1606 showed that water could be forced up a pipe by steam pressure.

1611 Likewise, Salomon de Caus demonstrated in 1611 that steam pressure could forcibly eject water from a closed boiler.

1629 Giovanni Branca of Loretto proposed in 1629 to provide power by impinging steam issuing from a boiler on to vanes fitted to a horizontal wheel. It is doubtful if this machine existed otherwise than in the mind of the presenter.

1643 Galileo's pupil, Evangeliste Torriceli, proved in 1643 that the earth's atmosphere had weight and therefore exerted a pressure.

1672 Otto von Guericke in 1672 made a cylinder with a close fitting piston. This he strongly fixed in the vertical position. By a rope and pulley 20 men effortlessly raised the piston to the top of the cylinder. Von Guericke had earlier prepared a large hollow sphere from which he had removed the air using a vacuum pump of his invention. When the sphere was connected to the cylinder atmospheric pressure pushed the piston down in spite of the efforts of the 20 men to restrain it. This demonstrated that the atmosphere was a potential source of energy but a vacuum was also needed to make use of it. No easy means existed of creating a vacuum except by a mechanical pump.

1680 Huygens and his assistant Denys Papin tried gunpowder in 1680 to expel air from a cylinder and create a vacuum. This was not at all practical.

1690 Denys Papin went on to replace the gunpowder by a small quantity of water which he boiled off into steam. When the fire was put out, the steam condensed causing a vacuum and the piston was forced down by the pressure of the atmosphere, raising a weight by rope and pulleys. Papin, however, did not pursue this line of investigation.

1698 Thomas Savery, a Devon man, was the first to combine the force of steam and the pressure of the atmosphere. He was granted a patent in 1698 for "Raising water by the impellent force of fire". Savery's "engine" comprised a boiler and a receiver. Steam from the boiler filled the receiver. Cold water poured over the receiver condensed the steam causing a vacuum. Atmospheric pressure forced water up a suction pipe connected to the receiver, which became full of water. Steam from the boiler at pressure blew the water out of the receiver up a delivery pipe and also refilled the receiver with steam. The cycle was then repeated. Valves were fitted in pipes to control the steam and to prevent the water, which was being raised, from going the wrong way. In time the boiler became empty. To refill it with water meant drawing the fire and relieving the boiler of its pressure.

1700's

By the 1780s factory owners were demanding steam engines that could provide rotary motion. This need was answered, with engines running at constant speed without any attention from the driver, which also led to experiments with paddle steamers and miniature carriages. The 18th century saw the development of the first workable and commercially viable steam engines pumping out the mines and allowing them to go deeper.

1702 Savery overcame the problem of intermittent operation to some extent by providing a second boiler, which was used to refill the first boiler under pressure. Although the "Miner's Friend" was workable, boiler making technology of the time could not cope with the steam pressures involved. Effectively it became a suction machine only, capable of lifting water to 30 feet at the most. Savery abandoned his attempts to introduce the engine in 1705.

1712 About the time that Savery was developing his engine, Thomas Newcomen of Dartmouth assisted by John Calley, was experimenting with a cylinder and piston engine. Steam under the piston was condensed to form a vacuum, whereupon atmospheric pressure pushed the piston down. By means of chains and a rocking beam the piston could be connected to a pump in a mineshaft. A vital discovery was that direct injection of cold water in to the cylinder rapidly produced condensation so that the engine could operate at several strokes per minute. The height to which water could be lifted was limited only by the size of the piston, and the engine would work with the pressure of 1.5 pounds per square inch (0.1 bar). Here was an engine that could be built by the millwright and blacksmith. Success was assured. Because of Savery's patent, Newcomen had to go into partnership with him although Newcomen's engine had hardly anything in common with Savery's machine. The first Newcomen engine of which there is record was erected on a colliery near Dudley castle in 1712. It had a brass cylinder 21 inches bore (533mm) and 7ft 10 inches high (2.388metres). When the boiler was making plenty of steam and the engine made 12 pumping strokes a minute lifting 10 gallons per stroke (45 litres) from 50 yards (46 metres depth). At the time of it's construction it was the world's first self-acting machine apart from clocks. By 1800 some 1500 engines were at work in Britain, with others in Europe and one in the USA.

1760's

The Newcomen engine was extravagant in fuel and a newcomer, James Watt, perfected a less fuel hungry engine which he patented, with the financial backing of Matthew Boulton. But the next great hurdle was rotary motion for the factories.

1769 The Newcomen engine was extravagant in fuel due to the injection of cold water into the cylinder at each stroke. This was made evident to James Watt when he asked to try and make a model of Newcomen work. Although he had no previous experience of engines he began experiments which led to his "separate condenser" which eliminated the injection of water directly into the cylinder with a consequent great saving in fuel. He also used steam, still at very low pressure to push down on a piston instead of the atmosphere. A vacuum was still needed under the piston for the engine to do useful work. Watt's patent for the separate condenser was taken out in 1769.

1774 James Watt encountered great financial difficulties in perfecting his new engine and in 1774 entered into partnership with Matthew Boulton, a Birmingham industrialist who was able to provide financial backing and business acumen.

1775 An Act of Parliament in 1775, Watt was able to extend his patent to 1800.

1780 By 1779, factory owners desperately wanted engines that could provide rotary motion. This was considered a great difficulty. James Pickard and Matthew Wasborough fitted a crank, connecting rod, and flywheel to a Newcomen type engine to obtain rotary motion and patented the arrangement.

1780's and 1790's

After an abortive attempt at the introduction of the "compound" engine, the indefatigable Boulton and Watt developed the double acting rotative engine for the Albion flourmills in London.

1781 Jonathan Hornblower the younger obtained a patent for a "compound" engine in 1781. Steam was first admitted to a small cylinder, and after pushing the piston, was exhausted to a larger cylinder to do further work before exhausting to the condenser. Hornblower used Watt's separate condenser and was prosecuted. In any event the very low steam pressures of the time prevented success.

1783 Until 1783, steam engines had been "single acting". Steam had pushed one side of the piston only. Watt now introduced the "double acting" engine in which steam pushed each side of the piston alternately. A problem was the attachment of the piston rod to the beam as it is now pushed up as well as pulled down. The chains used up to now were no use. Double chain and rack-and-sector arrangements were not satisfactory either. In 1784, Watt perfected his "parallel motion" linkage which provided a positive connection to the beam and also guided the piston rod in a straight line. The double acting rotative engine was now a practical proposition. About this time, William Murdoch, a senior employee of Boulton and Watt devised an oscillating cylinder engine which drove directly on to the crankshaft without the interposition of a rocking beam.

1786 A double acting rotative engine was supplied by Boulton and Watt in 1786 to drive the new Albion flourmills in London. This was followed by a second engine in 1789. William Murdoch made a miniature steam carriage in 1786.

James Watt built an engine that needed no attention from the driver, an employee of Boulton and Watt's was prosecuted for patent infringement - though his engine was popular at collieries, and a clergyman loomed large.

1788 James Watt introduced his centrifugal pendulum in 1788. This regulated the steam supply to rotative engines. These could now run at a steady speed without any attention from the driver. Miller, Taylor and Symington built a small paddle steamboat and tested it with some success on Dalswinton Loch in Scotland, near to Miller's residence. William Symington, an engineer at Wanlockhead lead mines, made the engine.

1792 Edward Bull, one of Boulton and Watt's engine erectors, introduced a pumping engine with the cylinder inverted over the mineshaft. The piston was coupled directly. Bull used the separate condenser. After he had built several engines James Watt prosecuted him for infringement of patent. Later, this type of pumping engine became quite popular at collieries.

1797 Richard Trevithick, a Cornish engineer was experimenting with higher pressure steam than Boulton and Watt were using. With a higher pressure steam, he could manage without a condenser. He was also experimenting with miniature road carriages at this time.

1798 Edward Cartwright, a clergyman and inventor of the powered weaving loom, designed a vertical engine whose piston drove an overhead crankshaft directly, without using a beam.

1800's

The 19th Century was the true age of steam, fuelling the Industrial Revolution. Steam changed Britain, its people, and the landscape forever. Steam not only ran the factories and the mines, but now powered locomotives and steamships. This was also the century that saw great names such as Stephenson and Brunel build the first commercial railway systems, changing the way people and goods were moved around the country. Steam changed the focus of life from the countryside to the towns and cities, changing us and the world from the rural to the industrial.

1800 Phineas Crowther of Newcastle-upon-Tyne patented an improved type of vertical engine in 1800. It had no beam. Quite soon it became widely used as a colliery winding engine. James Watt's patent expired in 1800. About this time Richard Trevithick's father may have invented the egg-ended boiler. It was suitable for a steam pressure of around 30 pounds per square inch. (2 bar).

1802 At Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, a steam railway locomotive was built, possibly to Richard Trevithick's design. Also in 1802, William Symington built a stern wheel steam paddle tug, which underwent successful trials on the Forth and Clyde Canal. Named "Charlotte Dundas", it was afterwards laid aside. Its engine had a Horizontal cylinder.

1804 Richard Trevithick built a locomotive for the Pen-y-Daren tramway in South Wales during 1802. This also had a horizontal cylinder. Colonel Stevens, an American, built a small steamboat with a propeller or "screw" for propulsion instead of paddle wheels.

1807 Robert Fulton, an American, launched his paddle steamer "Clermont" in 1807, the world's first steam ship to provide a regular passenger service in America. Also in 1811, Richard Trevithick introduced his "Cornish" boiler. It was stronger and more efficient than any boiler in use up to that time, and could withstand steam pressures up to 60 pounds per square inch (4 bar). Arthur Woolf returned to his home county, Cornwall, with a patent for a "compound" engine very similar to the Hornblower engine of 1781. The pursuit of higher steam pressures had begun. The compound engine in time became very widely used.